Summer Reading
I love reading. Like love, love. I suffer true grief when I finish a book and don't have something as good lined up next. While other people read at night to fall asleep, a good book usually keeps me awake. I sometimes go so far as to throw the book off my bed so I physically can not reach it and am forced to bore myself to sleep. (But sometimes I still get up and out of bed to retrieve said book and stay up all night.)
Summer reading was my favorite. As a child, my first competitive instincts were honed through summer reading programs at the local library. We were incentivized to read by getting prizes depending on how many books we read. I haven't really been the best at many things in my life, but those summers I crushed books like no other. I also wrote my sister's summer reading book reports. Mostly I just loved reading a lot, and not going to school.
I finally started keeping a "Books I've Read" list on my computer and it's quite helpful because I read so much I forget what I've read. So far, I've read 36 books this year and really wish I could still get a prize from my local library. I have no clue how many books I've read in past years but I feel like I'm above average. In fact, I Googled and found out that the average American reads four books a year. Now these are 2016 statistics so we might be up to about five books with these past two years of stay-at-home orders. But there's no telling...
I am taking a very deep breath right now and trying not to be highly critical and judgemental towards this so-called average American, but deep down, I'm seething. How can you deprive yourself of such joy!? What are you thinking with only four books a year? How could you even limit yourself?!
I end my rant to share an excerpt from my current reading: Illusions by Richard Bach. (You might know him from the famed Johnathan Livingston Seagull but I still think my favorite of his is Curious Lives. I wish his characters were hedgehogs or alpacas instead of ferrets, but I can overlook that because the tales are absolutely beautiful.)
All you need to know is that this is a conversation between two semi-strangers and one is leafing through a book belonging to the other.
"The pages don't have numbers on them, Don."
"No," he said. "You just open it and whatever you need most is there."
"A magic book!"
"No. You can do it with any book. You can do it with an old newspaper if you read carefully enough. Haven't you done that, hold some problem in your mind, then open any book handy and see what it tells you?"
"No."
"Well, try it sometime."
I love this reminder that we always find what we're looking for. Whether it's joy, disappointment, adventure, love, inspiration, beauty, horror, motivation, problems, or solutions, what's in our minds is often reflected back at us through the written word. In fact, it's reflected wherever we look: in tea leaves, weather, water, paintings, heart-shaped stones on the beach, seashells, sand...it's all there if we're looking for it.
Likely, my creativity in wanting to see the world inside my head reflected in other's writing is what made high school English class so boring. I felt like there was only one right way to read a book, when in fact I preferred to imagine what I wanted. But now that school is out for summer, I wonder what is coming up in the words you are reading? What is reflected from your story onto the page? What magic are you making with your mind?
Care to share? I'm always up for a call or you can respond here! I love hearing from you. I am taking on new one-on-one clients for the fall and will be launching a new community coaching group so stay tuned for that as well.
Wishing you very happy summer reading and lots of sunshine ahead,
Henna
PS: I just finished The Henna Artist (Alka Joshi) and The Soul of a Woman (Isabel Allende) and found myself noticing themes of compassion and forgiveness. Would love to know what you're reading!